Background music for YouTube videos – What are your options?

Despite what you might think, there are plenty of options for background music for YouTube videos. You can find royalty-free music from various places, including licenses here from Lickd, that will add the finishing touches to your video content. Don’t settle for a limited selection of free music from other music libraries; at Lickd, you’ll find over 100,000 of the very best hand-picked stock music tracks, alongside songs from the biggest artists and labels just waiting to be licensed for YouTube. Dive into the article below to find out more about the options available to you regarding background music for your YouTube videos.

How to find background music for YouTube videos?

If you want to add stock music to YouTube videos to help engage your audience, several options are available for you. Let’s take a look at them!

YouTube Audio Library

The YouTube Audio Library is YouTube’s own catalog of royalty-free production music and sound effects to use in your videos. You can find popular songs and get creative with sound effects to make your content come alive. However, one of the major downfalls of the YouTube Audio Library is that you can’t get commercial chart music. Arguably, what you can’t get with YouTube Audio Library outweighs what you can get, so most creators don’t use it. This is where other music library options come in handy.

Royalty-Free Music Sites

There are also many royalty-free music sites out there that allow you to use music from artists who have been paid a one-off lump sum and don’t get paid each time their work is used. Use some of the latest chart-toppers in your content through sites such as Lickd, which quickly, easily and cheaply provide licensed popular music.

Types of background music for YouTube videos

There are different types of background music for YouTube videos and different ways they’re used. Below we have outlined what each of these types are used for to help you understand which is best for your videos.

• Incidental Background Music

Incidental background music is music within a video that seeks to add atmosphere to action or evoke emotions. This is often referred to as production music.

• Instrumental Background Music

Instrumental background music is music usually without singing or lyrics. The different genres of instrumental background music can suit different audiences. For example, instrumental dance music works well for fitness videos. Another stand-out benefit is if the creator is talking, there isn’t any clashing with the singer of the music, perfect for podcast or tutorial streams.

• Introduction Background Music

A short snappy piece of music introduces your video to your audience and portrays what the content is all about. This could be chart music or royalty-free stock music.

• Chart Background Music

Using chart music as background music in your videos can spark emotions and drive engagement. Since people will recognise the music, especially current ones, your videos are more relatable and exciting. For example, having well-known Fifa songs in a video about football can lead to great success.

How to license a song with Lickd

Getting a chart music license for a song with Lickd couldn’t be simpler. Search for the song you want to add to your video, add it to your basket and read the license agreement. When you’re happy with this, check out the perfect song for your video. 

How to find inspiration for your background music

Each piece of content is different and, depending on what sort of content you’re creating, you’ll want another genre of music in the background of your video to make it stand out to your viewers even more. Below we’ve outlined some of the best music genres to go with different types of content.

• Cinematic: This music is excellent for emotive content where you are telling an emotional story. This genre works best with travel and landscape videos, anything with epic long shots.
• Ambient: If you’re playing a calm puzzle game or want to provide some non-distracting music to your beauty video, ambient music is the perfect choice for you. It provides a relaxed and soothing atmosphere for your video.
• Acoustic: An incredibly versatile genre, acoustic music is excellent for telling a story and provides an exciting twist to popular chart classics.
• Electronic: With a fast, up-tempo beat, electronic music is great for fitness and health videos to really get your heart racing.
• Hip Hop: Hip Hop is another excellent music choice for fitness videos, thanks to its high energy. It’s also great for sports commentary videos for the fast-paced action.
• Rock: Another type of music that’s good for storytelling, rock music evokes emotional responses and makes an impact on your audience.

If you’re looking for more advice on how using music on social media works and how to monetize your YouTube videos, check out our expert guides below:

• Stock Music for Instagram Videos
• Stock Music for Facebook Videos
• How to monetize your YouTube Videos

Now you know all about background music for YouTube videos – get the best

Lickd is a digital platform helping YouTube content creators legally use the music they love. We provide popular chart music from genuine labels for licensing in YouTube videos and Twitch streams, so you don’t have to worry about losing ad revenue to copyright claims. Discover over 1 million tracks in our library that you can start using today for as little as $8 per song.

The best thing is if you sign up now, you get 25% off your first track!